Review of Angela's Ashes

Still, no surprise here. A movie about life in impoverished Depression-era Ireland was in fact depressing. Ireland holds little promise for young Frank McCourt, the oldest son in a tightly knit family. Living by his wits, cheered by his irrepressible spirit, and sustained by his mother's fierce love, Frank embarks on an inspiring journey to overcome the poverty of his childhood and grow up as a successful author. Based on his memoirs of the same name, the movie begins with McCourt painting the 20th century Turn of the Century, immigrant's nightmare. It wasn't the picture of America dream, but as a broken dream, where his immigrant parents eventually give up and return from New York to their native Ireland when McCourt is just a small boy. Life doesn't get better for young Frank, and that might be the fault of the film and the book. It's too morbid. Children are always dying from pneumonia, typhoid, or tuberculosis. There is a lot of deep wrongs, here that the movie deal with, such as alcoholism, child abandonment, sexual abuse, etc. etc. that some viewers might be turn off of. Some people love hearing people survive against the odds, hints why the novel was popular, but that same fanfare didn't translate into film, because of some keys things. I read the book, they make the father Malachy (Robert Carlyle) look amazing in this movie, but sadly, he was a drunk. Frank blame him somewhat for one death in the family due to his drinking with black pint scene. This film seems to portray him as responsible, hardworking, and optimistic. He is quite different in the book. Still, what a great actor, Robert was. The author is trying to honor his mother by remembering her ashes. Frank's mother Angela (Emily Watson) takes the title of the film due to her endless amounts of smoking. Figuratively, it stands for the darkness of her very hardscrabble life and her dreams of raising a healthy family with a supportive husband have withered and collapsed, leaving her with only cigarettes for comfort and the smoldering ashes of a fire for warmth. While the movie makes her look good, once again, the book is a bit different in my opinion. Angela is still a filthy prostitute. People talk in reviews here about this woman's great self-sacrifice, but I noticed that she never failed to have a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, going through depression as her kids were going hungry and having to walk through the overflow of a toilet just to get into their house. I can't see any great self-sacrifice there, just laziness, lack of self-respect and self-indulgence. The mother is just as bad the father. Emily does a great role as well as Robert. Frank also go through his own guilt. It felt like a hate-filled Bildungsroman movie. Most of the movie, Frank is burdened by guilt at his own sinfulness, particularly the sinfulness of his sexual thoughts and behavior. He frequently worries that he is damned or that he has damned other people due to his Catholicism. While the movie might make Ireland look bad, it's helps cherishes the strong human spirit. Still it doesn't have the same spirit of the book. The music sounds so melodramatically to the point that mainstream America feels depressed. It's kind of hurts the film when the humor of the story comes in. The Irish humor is a little dry for American audiences as it hard for them to understand the Irish culture, the Anti-English Sentiment, and the Irish slangs in the language. Still, I love the movie culture symbolism in theme such as the river Shannon. Still, I can't see anything funny in this film, and certainly nothing noble in any of the characters. The movie is just one shovelful of grim after another linked by an unseen narrator who speaks of them in the past. This a major blow by Alan Parker, as it should have set the narration in present tense, using Frank to quote directly from his book. It is thrown upon unrecognizable and unbelievable caricatures of the Ireland culture that might not be true. We may never know the extent of the town of Limerick's misery. Not all books are meant to be translated into film. Still, they did an OK job with it.